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After Russian forces took control of his village in 2022, Volodymyr Vakulenko, a well-known Ukrainian author, sensed he might soon be arrested. So he buried his new handwritten manuscript in his backyard, under a cherry tree. Best known in Ukraine for his cheerful and lyrical children’s books, Mr. Vakulenko was seething with anger at Moscow’s occupying forces. Soon enough, Russian soldiers indeed arrested Mr. Vakulenko, and his body later turned up in a mass grave. Six months later, a fellow Ukrainian author, Viktoria Amelina, learned of the buried book, dug it up, wrote a foreword and sent it to a publisher.

Persons: Volodymyr Vakulenko, Vakulenko, Viktoria Amelina Organizations: Russian Locations: Ukraine, Ukrainian

They first appeared as a cloud of dust on the horizon. A few seconds later, the motorcycles carrying Russian soldiers sped into view, zigzagging across a field, kicking up dust, attempting a noisy, dangerous run at a Ukrainian trench. “They moved fast, they spread out and they swerved,” said Lt. Mykhailo Hubitsky, describing the Russian motorcycle assault he witnessed. It’s a type of attack that has been proliferating along the frontline this spring, adding a wild new element to the already violent, chaotic fighting. These nonconventional vehicles have been turning up with such frequency that some Ukrainian trenches now overlook junk yards of abandoned, blown up off-road vehicles, videos from reconnaissance drones show.

Persons: ”, Mykhailo Hubitsky Locations: Ukrainian

A Ukrainian reporter who revealed that a state news agency tried to bar interviews with opposition politicians said he received a draft notification the next day. Ukraine’s domestic spy agency spied on staff members of an investigative news outlet through peepholes in their hotel rooms. Journalists and groups monitoring press freedoms are raising alarms over what they say are increasing restrictions and pressures on the media in Ukraine under the government of President Volodymyr Zelensky that go well beyond the country’s wartime needs. “It’s really disturbing,” said Oksana Romanyuk, director of the Institute of Mass Information, a nonprofit that monitors media freedoms. That is particularly true, she said, in a war where Ukraine is “fighting for democracy against the values of dictatorship embodied by Russia.”

Persons: Volodymyr Zelensky, “, ”, Oksana Romanyuk Organizations: of Mass Locations: Ukrainian, peepholes, Ukraine, Russia

A month into Russia’s push across the border in northern Ukraine, Western weapons and Ukrainian reinforcements have largely stalled the attack. But they came too late to save one town, Vovchansk, where the city hall, a cultural center, countless apartment blocks and several riverside hotels are all now in ruins. A small town divided by the Vovcha River, Vovchansk was once a regional tourist attraction — a pleasant base from which to explore the chalk hills nearby. But it is also three miles from the Russian border, and when Russia began a cross-border offensive on May 10, it became Ukrainian forces’ stand-your-ground position. And a month of fierce fighting and relentless bombing by Russia has decimated the town, forcing almost everyone left there to flee.

Persons: Vovchansk, ’, ”, Tetyana Polyakova Organizations: Russia Locations: Ukraine, Western, Vovchansk, Russian, Ukrainian, Russia

☆ As Fighting Rages in Ukraine, a Struggle Is On for Artillery Supremacy
▼ + stars: | 2024-06-07 | by ( Maria Varenikova | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Russia, though, still holds an artillery advantage, which has been key in the war in Ukraine. Lt. Denys Yaroslavsky, a commander in northeastern Ukraine, where Russian forces attacked across the border last month and threatened to advance toward Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, said on Thursday that Ukrainian artillery crews could now fire more frequently at Russian forces. The Russian advance has largely stalled. But to the south of Kharkiv, in Ukraine’s Donbas region, Russia has renewed assaults on Ukrainian lines. Overall, the front line has not shifted significantly in more than two weeks, despite fierce and bloody fighting, according to soldiers on the front, military reports and satellite maps of the battlefield compiled by independent monitoring groups.

Persons: Biden, Denys Yaroslavsky Organizations: Congress, Ukraine’s Locations: France, Russia, Ukraine, Kharkiv, Ukraine’s Donbas

☆ Ukrainian Drone Strikes Target Russian Nuclear Radar Stations
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-30 | by ( Maria Varenikova | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In recent days, Ukraine has conducted a series of drone attacks inside Russia, including one of the longest-range strikes of the war, that target radar stations used, at least partly, as early nuclear warning systems by Moscow. On Monday, Ukraine struck a radar station near the border with Kazakhstan that was more than 1,100 miles away, a Ukrainian intelligence official said. Ukrainian experts said the facility was used to detect missile threats from Asia. On Tuesday morning, the governor of the Krasnodar region of Russia reported that a Ukrainian drone was downed in the sky over the town of Armavir, which is home to two radar stations. Ukraine did not report any new strikes that day.

Persons: Biden Locations: Ukraine, Russia, Moscow, Kazakhstan, Ukrainian, Asia, Krasnodar, Armavir, Kyiv, United States, Kharkiv

☆ Onstage, Witches and Cossacks Strike a Chord With Ukrainians
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-27 | by ( Maria Varenikova | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

The lines for the show snake down the block, with people waiting for up to seven hours to buy tickets at the theater in downtown Kyiv. Videos of the performance have drawn millions of views online. The smash hit isn’t a popular Broadway musical or a series of concerts by a pop star — it’s a play based on a classic 19th-century Ukrainian novel, “The Witch of Konotop,” and the mood is anything but upbeat. Consider the opening line: “It is sad and gloomy.”Mykhailo Matiukhin, an actor in the production, said that is what has struck a chord with Ukrainians because it shows “what we are living through now.”

Persons: Mykhailo Matiukhin, ” Locations: Kyiv

As Ukraine struggles to hold back Russian advances, the country’s officials say they are once again facing the formidable challenge of keeping electricity flowing as Moscow’s forces increasingly strike power plants. To conserve energy, the government has ordered nationwide rolling blackouts for Monday night, broadening the smaller regional ones that have become the norm in recent weeks. “This is another frontline in the war,” said Maxim Timchenko, the head of DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private electricity company, on social media last week. He said the company’s workers were engaged in a “race against time” to restore power to consumers. The nationwide blackout, scheduled from 6 p.m. to midnight, will affect the entire country for the first time this year, but it is unclear if it will continue past Monday.

Persons: ”, Maxim Timchenko Locations: Ukraine

Many Ukrainians were up in the early hours of Sunday morning, for once not to seek shelter from incoming Russian missiles, but to celebrate the Ukrainian boxer Oleksandr Usyk becoming the world’s undisputed heavyweight champion. Mr. Usyk’s victory over the British boxer Tyson Fury was a rare piece of good news for an embattled nation that is struggling to contain Russian advances, particularly in the northeast, where Moscow has opened a new front. President Volodymyr Zelensky lauded the victory as a symbol of Ukraine’s resilience. “Ukrainians hit hard!” Mr. Zelensky wrote in a Telegram post around 3 a.m. that included a photograph of Mr. Usyk delivering a punch to Mr. Fury. Russian troops recently advanced farther into Robotyne, a village in the south that was one of the rare successes of Ukraine’s failed counteroffensive last summer.

Persons: Oleksandr Usyk, Tyson Fury, Volodymyr Zelensky, Zelensky, Usyk, Fury, Ukraine’s Locations: British, Moscow, Robotyne

Russian troops punched across Ukraine’s northern border with such speed and force last week that Ukraine’s meager fortifications offered almost no obstacle. As she fled the village where she had spent her whole life, she said, not a single Ukrainian soldier was in sight. The stunning incursion into the Kharkiv Region lays bare the challenges facing Ukraine’s weary and thinly stretched forces as Russia ramps up its summer offensive. The Russian troops pouring over the border enjoyed a huge advantage in artillery shells and employed air power, including fighter jets and heavy glide bombs, to disastrous effect, unhindered by depleted Ukrainian air defenses. Once over the border, the Russian soldiers easily pushed past fortifications — like trenches, land mines and tank barriers — some of which, Ukrainian troops said, were insufficient or sloppily constructed.

Persons: ”, Tetiana Novikova Locations: Vovchansk, Ukrainian, Kharkiv Region, Russia

☆ Defending in Its North, Ukraine Faces Pressure All Along Front Line
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-16 | by ( Maria Varenikova | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Ukrainian forces said on Thursday that they were slowing the pace of an offensive push by Russia in their country’s northeast, even as they struggled to contain new Russian assaults at several other locations on the front line, with Moscow seeking to stretch Kyiv’s troops to break through their defenses. The Ukrainian military reported late Wednesday that it had repelled four ground attacks in the northeastern Kharkiv region, where Russian forces surged across the border last week and quickly captured a dozen or so villages and about 50 square miles of territory. “Over the course of the day, our Defense and Security Forces of Ukraine — all units involved — have managed to partially stabilize the situation,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video address on Wednesday evening. “Our attention is constantly focused on the front line, on all combat zones.”Ukrainian civilians who were evacuated on Thursday said that Russian forces had been fighting in small units that slip through the forest and into villages. They have popped up unexpectedly on streets in the town of Vovchansk, a village a dozen miles to the east of Kharkiv city that is now contested between the two armies.

Persons: Volodymyr Zelensky Organizations: Russian, Defense and Security Forces Locations: Russia, Moscow, Kharkiv, Ukraine, Vovchansk

Ukraine rushed reinforcements to its northern border on Friday after Russian forces attempted to break through Ukrainian lines along several sections, applying new pressure on forces already stretched thin along a 600-mile front. The Russian assaults began at around 5 a.m. Friday with massive shelling and aerial bombardments of Ukrainian positions followed by armored columns trying to punch through at several points along the border, according to a statement from Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense. “As of now, these attacks have been repelled, and battles of varying intensity are ongoing,” the ministry said. “To strengthen the defense in this sector of the front, reserve units have been deployed.”The breadth and intent of the Russian border incursions remained unclear. Military analysts have said Russia may be trying to force Ukraine to expend valuable resources in defending the region just as Russian assaults in eastern Ukraine are intensifying.

Persons: “ Organizations: Russian, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense, Military Locations: Ukraine, Russian, Russia

☆ DNA Tests and Stranded Bodies: Ukraine’s Struggle to Name Its Dead
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-05 | by ( Maria Varenikova | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The bodies of the two Ukrainian soldiers lay motionless in a field for months. The soldiers’ relatives identified their bodies from aerial footage gathered by drone. Andriy Zaretsky — were dead. Yet more than four months later, the Ukrainian military still lists them as missing, even though subsequent drone footage provided by a fellow soldier weeks later showed them still lying there. This confusion, and the lengthy, difficult process of obtaining official declaration of the deaths, is far from isolated, and has emerged as another painful consequence of the two-year-old war.

Persons: Serhiy Matsiuk, Andriy Zaretsky —, ”, Zaretsky’s, Anastasia Locations: Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine’s

☆ Russia Strikes Ukraine’s Railways and Vows to Slow Arrival of U.S. Aid
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-26 | by ( Maria Varenikova | More About Maria Varenikova | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

At least 31 civilians were injured and six killed in the attacks, according to the Ukrainian military and local officials. Three of the dead were railway workers killed by a strike in the Donetsk region. Russia also attacked a railway facility in the Cherkasy region but no casualties were reported. The latest attacks on the rail network came after Russia’s defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, promised to target Western weapons as they arrived in Ukraine. “We will increase the intensity of strikes on logistics centers and storage bases of Western weapons,” he said in a speech Tuesday at the ministry.

Persons: Sergei Shoigu, “, ” Locations: Russia, Ukraine, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Cherkasy, Ukrainian

☆ Ukraine Is Denying Consular Services to Men Outside the Country
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-26 | by ( Maria Varenikova | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Ukrainian officials have taken several steps in recent weeks to swell the ranks of an army depleted by more than two years of grueling combat. The government passed a new mobilization bill aimed at increasing troop numbers and has stepped up border patrols to catch draft dodgers. Now, officials are targeting men who have already left the country. This week the government announced that Ukrainian embassies had suspended issuing new passports and providing other consular services for military-age men living abroad. By suspending consular services, the government said, it was responding to demands for fairness in society.

Organizations: dodgers

Its towering smokestacks once puffed out clouds of steam. In gigantic machine rooms, turbines whirled around the clock. In the Soviet era, the Kurakhove Heating and Power Plant gave rise to the town around it in Ukraine’s east, driving the local economy and sustaining the community with wages and heating for homes. “Our plant is the heart of our city,” said Halyna Liubchenko, a retiree whose husband worked his entire career in nearby coal mines that fed the facility. That heart is barely beating now, partly destroyed by artillery.

Persons: ”, Halyna Liubchenko Organizations: Power Locations: Soviet, Ukraine’s, Ukraine’s Donbas

From the bloody trenches of the battlefield to crowded cities battered by Russian bombardments, millions of Ukrainians waited in nervous anticipation as the United States Congress prepared, after months of delay, to decide if America will resume providing their country with critical military support. Private Pavlo Kaliuk, who has been fighting to slow the Russian advance after the fall of the city of Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine earlier this year, was on his way to the funeral for a fallen soldier when reached by phone on Friday. “I am walking and thinking that maybe it’s my friend who died at war, who is up in the sky now, who will help the world and United States to support Ukraine,” he said. Ukraine cannot rely on divine intervention; instead it is counting on the House of Representatives to approve a $60 billion aid package on Saturday.

Persons: Pavlo Kaliuk, “, ” Organizations: United States Congress Locations: America, Avdiivka, Ukraine, United States

☆ Russian Missile Strikes North of Kyiv Kill at Least 14, Ukraine Says
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-17 | by ( Maria Varenikova | Marc Santora | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

At least 14 people were killed and scores more injured when three Russian missiles struck a busy downtown district of Chernihiv, north of Kyiv, just before noon on Wednesday, Ukrainian officials said. President Volodymyr Zelensky said the death toll, reported by the office of Ukraine’s prosecutor general, might rise and blamed Ukraine’s lack of air defenses for the loss of life. The prosecutor general said that 61 people were reported injured. “This would not have happened if Ukraine had received enough air defense equipment and if the world’s determination to counter Russian terror was also sufficient,” Mr. Zelensky said in a statement. Ukrainian officials did not comment on the apparent attack, but Russian military bloggers affiliated with the Kremlin reported that Ukrainian missiles had struck locations around the air base in Dzhankoi, Crimea.

Persons: Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s, Mr, Zelensky, ” Organizations: Kremlin, Ukrainian Locations: Russian, Chernihiv, Kyiv, Ukraine, Crimean, Ukrainian, Dzhankoi, Crimea

☆ Drones Strike Deep in Russia, as Ukraine Extends Its Weapons Range
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-02 | by ( Maria Varenikova | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Exploding drones hit an oil refinery and munitions factory far to the east of Moscow on Tuesday, in what Ukrainian media and military experts said was among the longest-range strikes with Ukrainian drones so far in the war. The drones struck in the Tatarstan region of Russia, about 700 miles from Ukrainian-held territory. The targeted factory was built by Russia to produce its own arsenal of long-range attack drones that are based on an Iranian design known as Shaheds. Russian officials said a Ukrainian drone hit a dormitory at a factory in the Tatarstan region. In the video, a bystander can be heard yelling, “a drone hit the factory!”

Locations: Moscow, Tatarstan, Russia, Ukrainian

The Kremlin has fired its top naval commander, the biggest fallout yet from a series of devastating attacks by Ukraine on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, according to a Ukrainian and a Western official. Adm. Nikolai Yevmenov, the head of the Russian Navy for the past five years, was removed from command and replaced by the head of the Russia’s Northern Fleet. Russian publications, citing anonymous sources, reported on Sunday that Admiral Yevmenov had been fired. The Financial Times, citing Ukrainian officials, reported the development on Monday. U.S. officials have assessed that while Kyiv’s counteroffensive last year in eastern and southern Ukraine largely failed, its strikes on the Crimean Peninsula and attacks on the Black Sea Fleet were unexpectedly effective.

Persons: Adm, Nikolai Yevmenov, Yevmenov Organizations: Russian Navy, Fleet, Financial, Black Locations: Ukraine, Russia’s, Ukrainian, Crimean

As the war continued to rage in Ukraine’s east, much of its Western border was blocked on Tuesday by another fight, this one with Polish farmers. The farmers have for months been protesting an influx of Ukrainian products that they say is crowding the Polish market and undercutting their livelihood. On Tuesday, they obstructed check points for commercial transportation, halted the passage of about 3,000 Ukrainian trucks and opened some train cars containing Ukrainian grain, spilling it onto the rails. “It’s either us or them,” a Polish farmer said on Tuesday on the Polish TV channel Polsat News. “Someone must be interested in us.”The demonstration prompted a counterprotest in Ukraine, where previous blockades by Polish truckers have hampered the supply chain of goods reaching the country, causing shortages that have begun to affect soldiers on the battlefield.

Persons: It’s, ” Organizations: Polsat Locations: Polish, Ukraine

As outgunned Ukrainian soldiers struggle to hold back bloody Russian assaults on land, Ukraine said on Wednesday that its forces had struck yet another powerful blow against the Russians at sea, sinking a large Russian landing ship off the coast of Crimea before dawn. The Ukrainian military released footage of the strike, which it said had resulted in the sinking of the 360-foot-long landing ship Caesar Kunikov, its fourth-largest landing ship taken out of action in the war, possibly complicating Russia’s logistical efforts in southern Ukraine. The Ukrainian claims could not be immediately confirmed, but when NATO’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, was asked about the attack, he called Ukraine’s campaign on the Black Sea a “great achievement.”“The Ukrainians have been able to inflict heavy losses on the Russian Black Sea Fleet,” he said at a news conference in Brussels. Russia has lost more than a third of its fleet since the war began, according to Ukrainian officials and military analysts.

Persons: Caesar Kunikov, Jens Stoltenberg, ” “, ” Locations: Ukrainian, Ukraine, Crimea, Russian, Brussels, Russia

☆ A New General Takes Over as Ukraine Struggles on the Battlefield
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-08 | by ( Andrew E. Kramer | Maria Varenikova | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

It was a strung-out, vicious spell of urban combat in the eastern city of Bakhmut last winter, and even as Ukraine was clearly losing ground in the fight, General Syrsky, then commander of the ground forces, had argued that the decision to defend was sound since Russia was losing more soldiers than Ukraine. Ukraine maintained what military parlance calls a favorable attrition ratio in the Bakhmut street fighting, but it did little to win backers for the general’s strategy among rank-and-file soldiers. Bakhmut ultimately fell, after Ukraine had lost thousands of troops in the grinding fight. The nickname “the Butcher” for General Syrsky is now widespread in Ukraine’s Army. In the two earlier successful battles — in the defense of the capital, Kyiv, and in the northern Kharkiv region — General Syrsky’s soldiers had turned to small-unit tactics and rapid maneuvers to defeat the larger, better armed Russian forces.

Persons: Oleksandr Syrsky, General Syrsky, Bakhmut, Syrsky, — Organizations: Russia, Ukraine’s Army, —, Ukrainian Army Locations: Bakhmut, Ukraine, Russia, Kyiv, Kharkiv, Russian, United States

☆ Russian Missiles Hit Ukrainian Cities Amid Fears Over Air Defenses
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-23 | by ( Maria Varenikova | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The assault added to concerns about the state of Ukraine’s air defenses as Russian barrages continue on its largest cities. Ukraine’s air force said that 41 missiles had entered the country’s airspace early Tuesday. The Ukrainian authorities provide details of cruise missiles in flight, and residents can track them for about an hour as they fly from Russia. The ballistic missiles, which travel much faster, struck in Kyiv on Tuesday just as the cruise missiles arrived. “Most of missiles were ballistic, and our air force can’t down them all,” Mr. Ihnat said.

Persons: Yuriy Ihnat, ” Mr, Ihnat Locations: Russia, Kyiv

It was the middle of the night in early January when a Russian missile streaked in and exploded in the center of Kharkiv, blasting down walls and shattering windows. The next day, people went shopping and to work, ate out in restaurants and clogged the streets with traffic jams, almost as if nothing had happened. But behind the business-as-usual veneer, residents of Kharkiv have been seething. Over the past month, Ukraine’s second-largest city has taken the brunt of Russia’s missile campaign, which has killed and wounded dozens of people, blown up buildings and unnerved everyone. To vent, Kharkiv’s residents have a dedicated outlet: Radio Boiling Over, a new FM station.

Persons: Ukraine’s, It’s Locations: Russian, Kharkiv

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